Ouisa D. Davis: Education becomes politicized in Texas

Public education has become a politicized issue. Since the implementation of standardized public education, quantitative outcomes have trumped the importance of personalized and targeted education.

Recently graduated public- school teachers were raised under the rote-learning, test-taking principles of "No Child Left Behind." For the first time in the history of public education, our nation's children will receive a standardized form of education focusing on quantitative knowledge by people educated by rote-learning models.

An educator holding 28 years of teaching experience described the teaching, testing and teacher evaluation model permeating the current education environment. After teaching to meet achievement targets for 15 years, using required models and resources, she has come to rely on rote-teaching and would struggle to reincarnate the teaching skills and practices of her early career.

How many times have teachers complained about "teaching to the test?" It's not just a workplace complaint -- current standards and methodology surrounding public education prevent educators and administrators from utilizing personalized education models, under which most of our minds were formed.

As recent history has demonstrated, the current system sacrifices our children's education for the benefit of higher test scores. These policies promote factory-model school policies that cripple the creativity and professionalism of our educators, and punish children who need different learning modalities. And worse, they encourage cheating by administrators.

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The right to quality public education is a civil-rights and social- justice issue that has become politicized. This politicization has reached fever pitch in Texas. In an era where public services are decried, the shift to privatization of education is on the state legislative agenda -- to the detriment of public-school financing.

Couched in terms of funding, there is a plan afoot to further de-fund public education in favor of privatization. With the loss of dollars that follow the student from the public school into private and parochial schools, administrators will struggle to reduce costs, thus increasing educational inequity. And, ironically, the private-school setting actually permits the personalized education models allowing development of critical thinking skills that the rote-teaching models prevent.

But this is the obvious outcome of the politicization of education reform and legislation. The more sinister and implicit consequence is the ongoing decimation of the pubic-education system as a whole, and the destruction of the very skills education is designed to develop.

When public education is politicized and reduced to funding quotas and quantitative results, children suffer, education equality is denied and the long-term implications point toward the under-education of the general population. Information about the pros and cons of current initiatives can be found at texaskidscantwait.org.

Texas Sen. José R. Rodríguez recognizes the long-term implications. On Jan. 18-19, at Bowie High School, he and other state legislators and educators will host a conversation about pending legislative initiatives.

We all have a role to play in this conversation, whether or not our children are currently in the school system. We pay property taxes, most of which support public education. Our children will benefit from our participation. Contact Michael Coulehan at 831-5230, mcouleh1@epcc.edu for more information.

Ouisa D. Davis is an attorney at law in El Paso. Email: Ouisadavis@yahoo.com